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Monday, 11 May 2015

Obama, Osama bin-Laden, and Disinformation

We
live in the age of conspiracy theories and the thirsting of the public for a
story that challenges the manufactured news of the corporate media and
government. The reason for this is that indeed news is so slanted toward
molding public opinion than of informing. Government has intentionally used the media to induce political conformity so the truth of a news story is lost in propaganda.
Disinformation has been an integral part of foreign policy in modern history and this is understandable when countries are enaged in war. From the Spanish-American War when the US launched its
imperial global reach until the present era of
modern surveillance and drone warfare, the media has been a tool in policy for the purpose of shaping public opinion at home and abroad.

The
latest news story that is receiving modest attention in the US and strong refutations from the government, media, and apologists of foreign policy has to do
with the claims of award-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. In the
May 2015 issue (Vol. 37 No. 10), Hersh is reporting that according to a
confidential Pakistani source, the government of Pakistan had captured Osama
bin-Laden in 2006 and was holding him in a secret compound until the US
military operation that resulted in his capture and death.

Hersh
claims that in exchange for a payment of $25 million, a Pakistani intelligence
officer walked into the US embassy and revealed that his government was holding
Osama bin-Laden prisoner in a secret compound. Because of the Pakistani government
had itself lied about not knowing bin-Laden’s location it was and is in a very
difficult position revealing what actually took place. Pakistan had no choice but to
yield to the US on the the Navy Seals operation for the capture that would
unfold exactly as Washington demanded, evidently staged if the sources of Hersh
are telling the truth. Even before Hersh’s story, there were some unconfirmed
reports that bin-Laden was indeed held in a compound in Abbottabad. Neither the
US nor the Pakistani officials would acknowledge it, despite some serious questions about the official version of events. It is understandable
that they could not possibly do so for they would derive no benefit of any sort and only damage their own credibility.

Although
Hersh claims that the Obama administration was facing reelection and needed a
glorified heroic Osama capture to put him over the top with increasingly
skeptical voters, the fact is that the US could not possibly permit Pakistan to
simply hand Osama over for trial at the International Court of Justice at the Hague. After all, the US had spent hundreds of
billions in taxpayer money and many lives on the global war on terror, and the only way to justify the military solution was the "Rambo-style" capture and elimination of Osama. The US had
insisted that it would prevail on the war on terror, no matter what, and asked its own people and the world to support the policy. It was symbolically significant
for the US to carry out the capture and killing of bin-Laden in the manner it
unfolded to prove to voters at home and to the world that the policy of the
war on terror rooted in military interventionism was working and no other solution was an option. Therefore,
taxpayer dollars were not wasted on some wild goose chase where the Pakistanis
catch the goose and hand it over.

It
is true that Pakistan was receiving about $2 billion, perhaps more covertly and
who knows about bribes through third parties to various officials in
government, military and intelligence services. US aid was given largely because the Pakistani
government had agreed to be actively engaged in the US war against al-Qaeda and
jihadists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In exchange for occupying Pakistan
militarily, determining Pakistan’s foreign and defense policy, and for “collateral damage” fatalities resulting from
misdirected missions, the US had to provide aid. It is entirely possible, that
Pakistan gave bin-Laden to the US because it feared cuts in aid and wanted to
make sure that it secured even greater benefits if it cooperated, especially
when it had no choice, according to Hersh. Given the nature of Pakistan’s
internal politics and the sympathy within the government and intelligence services,
it is possible bin-Laden represented a great deal of leverage for Pakistan and
that is how they used it.

The publicly-stated US goal
in invading Afghanistan and coercing Pakistan to accept US military
intervention on its soil after 9/11 from which to launch operation against the
Afghan regime, Taliban and al-Qaeda was to capture and/or kill Osama bin-Laden
thus eliminating the terrorism threat to the US; a public relations promise that in reality would amount to nothing, considering Islamic militancy has actually been on the rise in the last five years. The publicly-stated goal placed the US in a
very limited position because it entailed only a military solution was possible
to the “manufactured war on terror” intended to replace the Cold War as the
rationale for continuing the same foreign policy from the Truman administration
to the present.

The unspoken US goal was to
establish a foothold next to Iran or to encircle Iran and force it into making
concessions on the development of nuclear weapons under the guise of developing
energy.In short, the real goal of the
US was to determine the balance of power so that Iran does not enjoy that role
or at least its power is considerably diminished. Osama bin-Laden was the catalytic symbol that held together an otherwise
futile and contradictory US foreign policy with detrimental consequences to the
economy drained by massive defense spending while China was capturing market
share even in Afghanistan and Pakistan that the US controlled militarily. In
other words, the US was desperate and needed a symbolic victory so that it
avoids the Vietnam syndrome, considering that Iran and China had actually
benefited from the US military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Seymour
Hersh is not the focus of this story he uncovered but the credibility of the US
government and American media must be questioned. If his sources are valid, there are two larger
issues here: 1) under Obama with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State there
was a massive lie and cover up of what actually took place; and 2) the role of
the media in aiding the government with an incredible lie about what took place. No one
expects confirmation that indeed Hersh is correct that the Obama administration
blatantly falsified facts for such an admission would be unrealistic.

Assuming
Hersh is correct, it is easy to understand why the US would want to cover up
what actually took place with Osama bin-Laden. In the 1980s during the
Mujahedin war against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan, the US helped to
create Osama bin-Laden along with US ally Saudi Arabia. In the last decade, the
US has played all sides of the war on terror, directly and through third
parties like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States siding with jihadists in
Libya and Syria, opposing them in Afghanistan. These kinds of contradictions of
playing all sides reflect a policy rooted not in ideology and
principles of freedom and democracy, but opportunism and deception with the
intent of stretching out the counterterrorism regime.

The
US war on terror has been at the core of the US foreign and domestic policy. It has implications on the federal budget, while it has a great impact on keeping the defense
industry strong, with massive banking financing behind them. Above all the war
on terror helps to keep both the domestic and global agendas focused on a foreign enemy instead of the
absence of social justice and the massive problems confronting people’s lives
with unemployment, underemployment, low-paying jobs, dwindling middle class and
massive capital concentration in the hands of a few billionaires. In short, the
domestic and international counterterrorism campaign that the US government has
institutionalized has become an integral part of the American culture and
keeps the existing political economy intact and the existing social structure. However, it
is backfiring both in the domain of foreign affairs as well as the domestic arena
where democracy has fallen victim to counterterrorism with minorities paying
the price in urban centers and the middle class continuing to weaken.

The
mainstream media that has always been enthusiastic to reflect and reinforce the
views of the government, especially the CIA and Pentagon, is skeptical about
Hersh’s story because he does not reveal the informant’s name and he does not
offer incontrovertible proof - written documents, audio or video to back this
story. Common sense tells us that in the absence of a Snowden-like or
Wikileaks-type revelation, it is very difficult to produce evidence of a
Pakistani intelligence officer walking into the US embassy and making a deal on
Osama. In its official response to the story, the White House and CIA dismissed Hersh's story as baseless and false. This was expected, as was the reaction of US media attacking Hersh for irresponsible journalism.

However,
it is important to consider that the US government has denied numerous stories
about operations that in time proved the government had engaged in
disinformation on a grand scale. This is everything from conducting medical experiments at home
and other countries half a century ago, to carrying out counterinsurgency
operations in Africa, Latin America and Asia, to assassinating political
leaders, as the Frank Church intelligence committee uncovered and where Seymour
Hersh was also a key player as an investigate journalist in the 1970s. For decades, the US government and media denied any CIA
involvement in Salvador Allende’s Chile. We know now that they were blatantly
lying. The list of manufactured stories by the US government is long as is the role of the media going along with such stories.

The
disturbing element in all of this is how the media has a very close
relationship with former defense, national security analysts working as “news
commentators” trying to mold if not reinforce the lies and deception. Part of
the reason is the connection with defense contractors, but also the role that
finance capital plays as well. When FOXNEWS
covered the Hersh story, it relied on a former Reagan administration official
on security who simply denied that there is any legitimacy to what Hersh is
claiming because he cannot prove it. Her argument was that she believed the CIA
director whom she has known for years and “he is a good man” who presumably
would not lie on a serious matter such as this. In other words, the media with close ties to government always
reinforces the official version until it becomes politically necessary to put a different spin on the story, let us say to use the information Hersh has uncovered against Hillary
Clinton running for president because she too was part of the alleged Obama lie
on Osama bin-Laden.

Exactly 70 years ago (1941), Orson Welles made Citizen Kane based on the
life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst whose newspapers molded
public opinion and influenced politics to a degree that some argue the
corporate press determined the course of politics instead of reporting it in an
open society where people are provided with information from all sides and all
perspectives so they can make up their own minds. In an open society
"Citizen Murdoch" and corporations with management that thinks like
Murdoch have the right to present their views freely and to reinforce
disinformation that the CIA and other government agencies dish out. We know
that to expand a media empire or an internet corporation that shares private
information with the NSA means insider political influence will result in
political favors and contracts among other perks for the media and
communications industry.

In a democratic society, the public is 'consuming news' often unaware that it
is really disinformation. This is a major reason that conspiracy theories have
become so popular. For example, the more that the US tried to demonize Russian President Vladimir Putin over
the Ukraine crisis, the more the disinformation was backfiring, leaving the
Obama team to argue that more money was needed to devote countering the
Russian propaganda campaign. This reveals that the only response for the
ineffective disinformation campaign was more disinformation, as though the
Russians enjoy a ubiquitous influence over Western public opinion.

Time will prove
if the Hersh story is legitimate or simply another "journalistic plant" to disinform and distract. In time we will know if this story is partially true, or if it is even worse
than Hersh described it. For now, we are left with the Obama administration that
came to office in 2009 with the pledge to end exactly the kind of practices he
has been pursuing in foreign policy and in the process lying to the American
people, as in the case of US drones killing of a US and Italian hostage in
January 2015. This does not mean that the world will ever know a single version
of what took place with Osama bin-Laden, the Pakistanis and the Americans, but
a clearer picture will emerge at some point. Meanwhile, the foreign policy of destabilizing
the Middle East, the foreign policy of contradictions, and the defense policy
of outspending all rivals to maintain Pax American will continue until it
brings the nation deeper in debt, economically weaker with a dwindling middle
class in a country where the word democracy will not have much meaning.

"A
gripping, passion-filled, and suspenseful tale of love, betrayal,
political and religious intrigue, this novel entices the reader’s
senses and intellect beyond conventions. Slaves to Gods and Demons
takes the reader through a roller coaster enthralling journey of
personal trials and triumphs of a family emerging vanquished and
destitute after World War II.

Narrated by a young boy, Morfeos, modeled after the Greco-Roman pagan
deity of sleep and dreams, the book reveals the soul of a people trying
to ascertain and assert their identity while rebuilding their lives and
recapturing the glory of a lost civilization.

Seeking liberation from restraints of time, social conventions, and
binding traditions, the deity of dreams provides the conformist and the
free-spirited characters in the novel with venues for redemption that
are mere paths toward illusions. Exploring the complexities of human
relationships shaped by priest and politician alike, the novel rests on
the central theme that life is invariably a series of illusions, some
of which are euphoric, most horrifying, all an integral part of daily
existence.

Striving for purpose amid life’s absurdities after the destruction of
western civilization in two global wars, the characters in Slaves to
Gods and Demons struggle between holding on to the glory and grandeur of
a pagan legacy and the Christian present shaped by contemporary
secular events in Western Civilization."